It is always beautiful to dedicate oneself to lost causes, but it is unwise to allow oneself to fry one’s nerves for them. To dedicate and expect nothing in return; to dedicate in spite of inevitable failure: that is enough. And for the rest, let things go as they should, worrying only as one worries about whether the day will be rainy or sunny. To do what is worthy and comfort in conscience; and the rest, let it be as it has to be…
Fun and Luck
It is fun to imagine Fernando Pessoa picking up a napkin in a bar, scribbling a few lines in an almost illegible scribble, and throwing it, laughing, into his big trunk. And to spend his life laughing as he repeats the same scene over and over again, imagining the monstrous work he was delegating to men he has never even met. So leave a gigantic and disorganized paperwork, and to hell with the editors! It is certainly fun and tempting. However, Pessoa, who admirably turned disorganization into a method, was lucky, first, to find editors, and second, to find them competent. Anyone daring to follow his example must therefore have a lot of faith, as well as develop that enviable ability to confront a mess by accepting it as what one has devoted one’s life to producing.
The Role of Creativity in a Work
The role of creativity in a work is simply to direct the effort. This, and not that, is what will make the work come to fruition. Naturally, a work in which the first does not shine will seem weak: but it is still a finished work, something that will never have the one who idealizes the role of creativity, believing it capable of materializing without boring work. One stimulates the brain and it points out paths: the legs, however, are the ones to follow them.
Those Moments When the Mind Unleashes…
Those moments when the mind unleashes weeks of creative work in a single burst are indescribable. It is amazing how the ideas shine with clarity and quickly pile up into sentences that become pages, until the point where they cease not because they are exhausted, but so that the eyes can admire, in disbelief, how productive the work session was. Everything is impressive, from the spontaneity to the abundance of manifestation, which takes place without the spirit seeming to exert itself as usual, and consequently takes place and generates no fatigue. Some artists have said that such an experience resembles a state of semi-lucidity, whereas a force beyond one’s control seems to do the work. Perhaps semi-lucidity is not the most appropriate term, since at such moments there is a pulsating sense of epiphany, and the mind seems lucid and clear as it has never been. And then, rare as they are, it is to make the most of them, rejoicing for as long as they last, and knowing that they will not always be available…